Darkly Dawns the Divergence
by Flyvarna
Summary: A continuation to "The Untold Adventures of Darkwing Duck." What would happen if the pilot episode went a bit differently? More specifically what if Darkwing missed the Morse code message?
1. Chapter 1

Darkly Dawns the Divergence

Prologue

_The editor flicked through his e-mails seeing nothing but more demands for Darkwing stories. It figured. Years after he'd been taken off the initial project of the duck writing his fill-the-gap stories, Disney had rebooted the old Ducktales show and that had led to the inevitable demand for a Darkwing Duck reboot and more fans wanting to know what the "real" Duck was like._

_And that was why his cartoony client was currently occupying his office, complaning about how he'd been neglected all these years. Granted, the duck hadn't even been aware of the passage of time until someone had told him._

_Well, at least they got him there at all. The Disney people had said something about Darkwing appearing on their new series, and how that might affect the duck's appearance or make him a different character entirely. The editor had hoped that would be the case, since the duck was...a bit hard to deal with. He was mildly disappointed when the duck had arrived normally._

_"So, what do you want me to write this time?" The duck demanded irritably._

_"Your first episode," the editor told him._

_"What?"_

_"They want to know what the first episode of your series was like. Someone found out that the way your pilot episode went was apparently not how things went in your universe. They wrote the original pilot, then the Disney people got that cut up so it'd only be two episodes long, so the bosses want you to write how things really went."_

_"But they start out the same way. Do you really want me to write the first episode verbatim until that point?"_

_"No, you can start from where they start to diverge. That won't be quite as hard, will it?"_

_The duck grunted, thoughtfully rubbing his beak. "Okay, but I'd better get something big out of it. A new TV show or something."_

_The editor cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yeah, about that..."_

Author's Note: Sorry about taking my own sweet time to come up with another Darkwing fic. My inner muse keeps giving me inspiration from other fandoms.

Anyway, the good part about having a job at a library is that it gives me plenty of time to write. I've got this incredibly long document of fics, fic fragments, and fic ideas. I've also got a tendency to exercise my creative skills by coming up with good "what-if" scenarios. In this case, it was "What if Darkwing missed the Morse code trap?" And it kinda snowballed from there into my own take on the original DWD pilot. I'm kind of tempted to write my own take on the first part, but as it is I'm content with the second.

And while I'm on the subject, it's looking like there's a very real possibility that the show will be rebooted in real life, too. I'm hoping that comes true.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1

And so I start writing the true version of how my own show _should_ have gone. This one starts out in the same way that the original show did, in fact it's exactly the same until in the second half.

For those of you who hadn't seen that so-called "episode" of my show, I'll set the stage for you. The corrupt crime boss Taurus Bulba was after a gravity-affecting invention called the Ramrod, but it wouldn't work unless the proper code was put in. The only one still alive who had even a chance of knowing the code was the inventor's young granddaughter, and this is where I enter the story. I heroically swooped in and saved her from the scum chasing her, only to find out that I was considered a criminal for being at the right place at the right time.

I took the kid to my secret base, on Audubon Bridge, and had just (involuntarily) shown her the ins and outs of my peculiar obstacle course in the kitchen when this story deviates from the original. I can't say if things would have been different if the producers of my show weren't working on a time limit (Seriously, only two episodes to set up the plot? The other so-called "Classic Disney Afternoon" shows had four or five episodes. _How _is this fair to me?)

But I can tell you one thing, my first encounter with Taurus Bulba did not go the way everyone thought it did. Seriously, what are the odds of his overgrown turkey hovering over the Tower at the _exact_ moment I left? No, Bulba's heinous strategy of luring me out via pretending to surrender to me by way of flashing Morse code over the city may have worked in the show, but there was one element he didn't see, never _would _have seen, coming.

"You have a SMES!"

The shrill squeal almost ruptured my eardrums and made me wonder for the thousandth time why I hadn't just turned the hyperactive young girl in to the zoo. As I recovered from the ear-splitting sound the girl in question, Gosalyn Waddlemeyer, the granddaughter of the deceased inventor Gadwall Waddlemeyer, ran in the direction of my dinky little TV set and the video game system residing under it.

"Well, I have to do _some_thing while waiting for criminals to strike," I grumbled, hoping that my hearing wasn't badly damaged. I wondered if the kid was getting tired, since that would give me and excuse to send her to bed, but she showed no signs of fatigue as she grabbed a controller.

"What games have you got?"

"I...um..." To be honest, I was surprised she hadn't made any comments on how weird it was for an adult to be playing video games. By that point, Gosalyn had already found my collection.

"Super Bario Mothers, Super MetRaid, Slowpoke the Sloth. These are all _one_-player games."

"There's a reason for that. I work alone, I _play_ alone!

"Aw, but beating up your friends is the_ fun _part of playing video games. Ah, here we go, Avenue Fighter 4!"

"But, I...never made it work." That part was true. No matter how many times I'd huffed and puffed into the cartridge, it had never worked. What was also true was that I hadn't wanted it in the first place, it had come with some other games I'd seen at a tag sale. I was about to make some insincere apology for when it didn't work when the TV screen lit up with the game's intro sequence.

"Wait, how did you do that?" I asked incredulously. "I blew on that thing so hard I choked, but I never made it work."

"What can I say? I've got the touch." Gosalyn handed me the unused other controller. "Shall we go for two rounds of getting your butt kicked, or three?"

"But, I don't _do_ fighting games."

"And I never played Avenue Fighter before. C'mon! Or are you _chicken?"_

"I am _not _a chicken. Okay, fine." I sat down on the floor, letting the kid take the worn-out beanbag chair.

I'll admit that even now, I prefer platform games to fighting games, but playing that game with that girl was aggravating, stimulating, trashtalking, _fun_ wrapped up in one package. We mashed buttons and bickered back and forth at least long enough to go through all the characters and for me to develop a favorite, and even beat her character a few times. But the winner by a large margin was still Gosalyn.

"That's twenty-three matches to five," she said after she won yet again. "You're pretty good!"

"Of _course _I'm pretty good," I said. "I'm Darkwing Duck!"

Gosalyn grinned broadly up at me for a moment before her good mood and smile suddenly disappeared.

"I wish I could play video games with someone like you more often," she said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. "The kids at the orphanage don't like it when I win so much at video games, so they don't play with me."

"Pfft, what do _they_ know?" I scoffed. "They won't get better than you just by giving up. If you're better than them, it just means you've got talent. In fact, you've _really_ got talent! You're better than _me_, and I've been video gaming ever since I was a kid!"

Her eyes lit up and for the second time that night she tightly wrapped her arms around me

"Thanks, Darkwing."

I struggled to breathe around her vice-like grip.

"A-any time, kiddo."

As she released me, I caught sight of the time. Almost _midnight_? We'd been playing for _that_ long?

"Speaking of 'time,' it's way past your bedtime."

"But I'm not tired!"

"No 'buts,' kid. You need your rest." So did I for that matter, but I wasn't about to show it in front of her.

"One more game, _please_? I've always wanted to play Super MetRaid. Besides, it's not like I have to get up early for school tomorrow."

"You can do that in the morning!"

"Well, technically speaking it's morning now..."

"Grr..." What was it with Gosalyn and loopholes? I buried my face in my hands.

"Okay, _one_ game. And if you get a game over, then it's straight to bed!"

It was probably because I was so tired, I somehow assumed that she wouldn't be as good at Super MetRaid as she was at a fighting game. The evil glint in her eyes should have been a dead giveaway. Then again, given what happened in the show, it was probably just as well.

"Okay!" Gosalyn popped the game into the system as I sat back to watch. Since the kitchen/training course/entertainment room had no windows, neither of us saw the ominous lights starting to flash in the sky...

...

Let me take the time to go from first-person to third-person. I'll be doing that from time to time, mostly to explain events that I had no idea about until later.

In a run-down old hangar, Launchpad McQuack, having more sense than either of us, had already crashed on the couch He'd left the TV on, which had just started a report on the missing Waddlemeyer Ramrod, the missing granddaughter of the inventor who made it and the vigilante suspected in the theft of both, namely me. One of the brooms which was holding up the roof collapsed, making a hefty racket and launching Launchpad into full awareness.

"Wha...oh."

He stared at the TV for a second, before turning it off in disgust.

"D.W.'s no crook. I'll tell them..." He yawned. "I'll tell 'em tomorrow."

And he slumped back down on the couch, snoring.

...

Up in the sky however, a giant airship shaped like a bull's head hovered over the city. On the airship's bridge, the mastermind behind this little endeavor was quickly running out of patience.

"It's past midnight," Taurus Bulba rumbled in an unamused tone. "Why hasn't he emerged?"

Hs lackeys could only shrug helplessly. Hammerhead Hannigan and his two dimwitted mooks Hoof and Mouth looked distinctly uncomfortable, while Bulba's secretary Clovis merely stared down at the monitor, which was showing a bird's-eye view of the city. Literally, in that Bulba's "pet" condor was soaring over the city skylights with a camera strapped on his neck.

"Could I have underestimated that do-gooder?" Bulba wondered aloud. "Perhaps he is smarter than I thought."

"Maybe he did go, an' you never noticed?" Hammerhead volunteered with a timidity which belied his usual brashness.

Bulba did not reply immediately, but merely stalked over to him with the kind of look that sends chills up your whole body.

"You may have finally come up with a good idea," he said in an ominous voice. "Perhaps you do have a use beyond making that...'Darkwing Duck' look good."

"Um, yeah," Hammerhead said shakily. "Yeah, that's me..."

He was cut off as a huge hand clamped on his mouth.

"And if the idea is a _bad _one," Bulba said lifting Hammerhead off his feet to eye level. "I know just who to blame."

Bulba dropped Hammerhead onto his keester.

"Clovis! Ready the landing platform. It's time for my..._chat_ with Darkwing Duck."

...

Loud snoring woke me up.

"What, _wha-?_" I jumped reflexively to my feet, looking around wildly before I realized it was just Gosalyn's snoring.

"Oh. The kid."

She really looked peaceful while she was sleeping, in contrast to her loud, hyper, _spirited_ self when she was awake. Not that she was quiet while sleeping, I noted.

"She could wake the dead," I grumbled under my breath.

To be fair, I hadn't meant to fall asleep myself, but my normal sleep schedule had gone out the window the instant I'd found out that Waddlemeyer had a granddaughter and had stayed out for the rest of the day. That cute lullaby she sang hadn't helped things, either.

Gosalyn rolled over in her sleep, knocking her blanket off and dropping the picture of her grandfather and herself as she did. I sighed and pulled the blanket back over her, then bent down to pick up the picture. It was a charming picture of grandfather and granddaughter in enthusiastic embrace, barring the grape jelly stain. I wondered how Bulba and his goons had gotten their hands on it, and suspected Mouth was responsible for the jelly stain. Behind the happy couple was a machine that looked like the one Bulba's henchmen had heisted the previous night, presumably the Ramrod. Its colorful buttons...

I scrambled frantically to grab something to see it better, picking up the cheap magnifying glass I'd got from a cereal box two days before.

"...They're just like the lyrics to that lullaby!" I whispered in shock. Was it possible that Waddlemeyer had given his granddaughter the Ramrod's arming code after all, in the form of a lullaby? It almost sounded too dumb to be true, but it made a kind of sense. After all, if I had a machine that could make stuff float I wouldn't put the arming code where just anyone could find it.

Well, probably not.

Did Gosalyn know? That thought stopped me cold. _"He never told me any code," _she'd said. If she didn't know she'd had it all along...

I glanced at Gosalyn's sleeping form.

For her sake, I'd keep it that way.

I yawned as the lack of sleep caught up with me again. As much as I wanted to stay vigilant, even heroes needed their sleep.

With any luck, Bulba did too.

...

Across town, Taurus Bulba waited in the shadows for Darkwing's extravagant entrance. One would think that the idiot with the planet-sized ego would be early, in fact Bulba had dropped an anonymous tip to the police hinting that the do-gooder was raiding the city's gold depository and was highly unstable and dangerous.

But as the minutes ticked by there was no sign of the interfering duck. Bulba subtly slipped from sanguine to spine-snapping. Where was he? _Where was he?_ Had Bulba underestimated the imbecile?

The door to the roof burst open and several policemen rushed in. The plan had been to stall that Darkwing until the cops came, then stand back and let the cops deal with the "bigger" threat. Bulba looked around in frustration, but there was still no sign of that "bigger" threat. And without Darkwing around to occupy the cops, they would settle for the lesser of two evils.

Bulba had no interest in being cooped up in prison again, so he stealthily slid back into the shadows, pressing the button to signal his airship as he did. As the airship hovered into view behind him with its boarding platform extended, he heard shouts from the policemen, then the sound of the airship's guns firing. No doubt Clovis making some "warning" shots. But it didn't matter. Darkwing hadn't fallen for his little trap. The girl with the arming code was still out of reach.

That duck was going to _pay_.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 2

Bright sunshine woke me up. I growled under my breath and pulled the pillow over my head to block out the hideously bright rays. Why was the sun in my face? It wasn't like my bed faced the window or anything…

"_Rise and shine!"_ The loud bellow was accompanied by a posterior plomping down on my chest.

"Oof!" Oh yeah. Kid. Ramrod. Arming code. Sleeping on the floor since she had the bed.

"Do you think you could do that somewhere _else?_" I demanded pointedly.

"Geez, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed." The kid, Gosalyn, pushed herself off me. "D'you want to play Avenue Fighter again?"

"Sorry, kid." I got stiffly to my feet, working out the kinks from sleeping on the floor as I did. "I have to find where Bulba's men hid the Ramrod."

"Bulba? But..."

"No 'buts,' little miss." I whirled around and headed for the stairs to enter the main computer room. "There's only so many places he could have hid an invention that size. But Darkwing Duck will look through _all _of them if need be!"

"But Darkwing..."

"Not now Gosalyn, I'm on a roll. Subtly scouring through suspicious spaces, Darkwing Duck cleans the concrete Canardtropolis of its capricious kleptomaniacs!"

There was an awkward pause.

"Are you done yet?"

"Yeah, I, uh, think so. Why?"

The kid held up a newspaper.

"'Cause I think I know where he's got it."

The headline read "Bulba on the loose." Underneath that was a picture of a very ugly, Taurine-looking airship soaring in the clouds.

"'Convicted tax-evader Taurus Bulba pulled off an audacious escape last night,'" I read aloud. "'When questioned, the warden said he was 'thrown for a loop'. The whereabouts of Bulba's vehicle are not currently known due to the authorities being too chicken to move. Any citizen with relevant information is advised to sit on it...' Yes!"

I lifted the kid and spun her around in my sheer exuberance.

"The police are totally helpless, the public is terrified. This is Darkwing Duck's finest hour!"

"So this means we get to fight him, right?" Gosalyn's eyes lit up. "We're gonna kick his booty right outta the park!"

"You're darned tootin'," I said grinning broadly. "And then..."

I suddenly stuttered to a halt as I realized that the end of this wouldn't be happy for all of us. With Bulba behind bars, Gosalyn would have to go back to the orphanage...

"And then we'll send him right back to jail where he belongs!" She whooped, not noticing my faltering at first.

"We sure will," I said as the enthusiasm quickly drained from my voice.

She looked at me skeptically. "What?"

"You're going back to the orphanage when this is over."

"So what? If I help you out, I'll be like a celebrity. Everyone will want to adopt that hero girl who had the guts to face that Bull-guy."

A crazy thought began percolating in my mind, but I quickly dismissed it as too insane.

"So where do we start?" Gosalyn asked.

"I need to find where his airship is," I replied without thinking. "And what he's done since he's escaped...wait a minute, '_we?'_"

"Well _duh_, you're gonna need all the help you can get, right? We'll take him down."

"'_We_' do nothing," I said feeling like I had this conversation before. "I work _alone_!"

"Well, I can't just sit here all day, I may as well help you. Or...I can always play kickball." She picked up a nearby globe and tossed it up and down meaningfully.

"_Kickball?!_"

"Yeah. This place is huge, there's plenty of space in here..."

I gritted my teeth irritably at the prospect of a ball-sized object flying around all my precious, _expensive_, crime-fighting equipment.

"Okay, _fine_. You can help But no kickball, got it?"

"Great! What do I do?"

I turned to the computer and pressed a few buttons, causing the printer to start spitting out Bulba's activity reports. It was something of a big stack.

"You can go over these crime reports and find any patterns for me."

"Aw, that's no fun!"

"You're the one that wanted to help," I said with a certain malice as I plonked the printouts into her arms.

Then I turned back to the computer.

"Now let's see. Bulba has an airship, but he couldn't have gone far if he wants Gosalyn. He's probably hovering over the city somewhere..."

But how could I get to him up there? I couldn't fly, and I did _not_ want to deal with that crash-prone fanboy. I didn't even have his number. Did that deter Darkwing Duck? Ha! I considered my options carefully. Bulba was in his airship. Odds were he'd only come down if a chance to get his hands on Gosalyn came up, although he'd be more likely to send his goon squad after her. Wait...

I started to pace around the room.

"How would Bulba's goons get on and off that airship?" I wondered aloud. "There must be some sort of safe landing spot somewhere. If I can find that, I'll..."

I suddenly tripped over something and tumbled head over heels into the bottom panel of the computer.

"...get him," I finished lamely, glaring upside down at the crime reports wrapped around my legs. And the sudden absence of Gosalyn. And the opening theme of Super MetRaid coming from downstairs.

"Weren't you supposed to be going over these?" I asked irritably as I stormed into the kitchen area with the reports in hand.

"I couldn't read all the long words they used, so I'm taking a break." Gosalyn waved a controller at me. "Besides, I still haven't figured out how to get past that trap on level four."

"Weren't you the one who wanted to help?" I grumbled as I reorganized the papers into some form of order, starting with the most recent, only to pause when I caught my own name in the report.

"'Taurus Bulba sent a message via Morse code that he would surrender, but only to Darkwing Duck,'" I read out feeling even more elated by the word. Bulba knew he was outmatched! Visions of headlines flashed before my eyes. 'Handsome hero hauls heinous honcho' 'Caped crusader captures corrupt con' 'Darkwing does it again!'

"_What_?" Gosalyn asked in what oddly sounded like an incredulous tone. "But he just escaped!"

"_Obviously_ he's had a chance to talk to his men about me!" I passed her the report. "This is it, Gos! My big break! Soon criminals around the city will cower at the mere mention of my name!"

"Are you _sure_ he's surrendering? This just doesn't make any sense. Besides, I don't think you read this too closely."

"What do you mean..." I grabbed the offered report. "'The message said...'" I skimmed through the first part. "'Bulba said he'd be at the gold depository at one AM in order to surrender himself...' Wait, I _missed_ it?!"

I dropped the report in shock, the headlines in my mind now mocking me. 'Duck drops the ball' 'Convict escapes while hero plays video games' 'Darkwing blows it.'

"This could have been my finest hour," I whined. Why couldn't I have put my foot down and sent the kid right to bed?

"Why would he surrender to _you_?" Gosalyn demanded sharply

"Because I had his men on the run," I snapped back. "I have to go meet him, maybe he's still there."

Gosalyn made a strange face. "Listen, I don't think it's a good idea to go. What if it's a trap?"

"Trap, shmap," I scoffed. "I can handle him."

"Yeah, just like you handled those guys yesterday."

"For your information, I was too busy rescuing _you_ to fight them. Do you think it's a coincidence I got you out of there?"

"No, I..."

"Was it just a coincidence you're here with _me _instead of with Bulba?"

"_No!_"

"Then, why don't you believe in me? It'll take more than just a few guys with guns to stop Darkwing Duck! I'll eat those guys for lunch, and still have room for dessert."

The kid hesitated, something strange reflecting in her eyes. Sadness? Resignation? Perhaps if I'd noticed them, things would have turned out very differently, but all I could see were the headlines.

"Sure," she said unenthusiastically. "If you're that set on going, I won't stop you. But I still think it's a trap."

"Yeah, and when Bulba is back behind bars, I'll be famous, you'll go back to the orphanage, and we can _both_ get back to our lives."

Okay, I was twisting the knife there. But I was absolutely _convinced _that I was right and that she was wrong. I turned around quickly, so I barely caught the hurt expression on her face.

I was in the mood for some steak.

Twenty minutes later, I stepped off the stairs on the roof of the gold depository. I had left the Ratcatcher, plus the helmet I'd actually used for once, parked not far from the entrance. No sign of Bulba, but that didn't mean he wasn't there. There was time for one of my trademarked entrances, then. I grabbed a smoke pellet.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the book that is missing the last page! I am Darkwing Duck!"

I looked around. Nothing.

"And I...am later than I thought," I finished irritably. I shouldn't have spent so much time playing video games with Gosalyn! I should have sent her right to bed. I leaned against the low wall surrounding the roof.

"Okay, now what? If I missed him, I should go back..."

But, what if I _hadn't _missed him? What if he decided to come back while I was gone? No, the best thing to do was wait.

...

"Looks like that duck actually came," Clovis remarked.

"_What_?" Bulba demanded. He'd thought for sure that the duck was too smart to fall for such an obvious trap. Yet there he was on Clovis' camera lounging against the wall. And Tantalus had grown tired of searching the city for that do-gooder, coming in to roost two hours ago, and was now asleep. Bulba had no idea where that duck's hideout was. Perhaps if he waited long enough the duck would grow tired and simply return to hiding, leading Bulba there, but he couldn't take that chance. The police were already after the duck because of the train incident, and not even such an imbecile as the duck would be as stupid as to lead the police to his hiding spot.

"Should I prepare the drop-off pad?" Clovis asked.

"Do that, Clovis. Darkwing and I will have a..._pleasant _'chat.'"

Clovis glanced at Bulba, who clearly meant the "chat" to be anything _but_ pleasant and felt very glad that it didn't involve _her_.

...

I had been waiting for maybe a half-hour, playing idly with my trusty yo-yo, when I heard a sound overhead, like a dozen jet engines going off at once. Looking up, I saw the enormous airship I'd seen in the newspaper descending from the clouds. I sprang to my feet trying not to look intimidated, while watching a small platform come down from the belly of the beast. And the very large figure that dominated it.

Taurus Bulba was about the size of a car, but built like he could take a hit from one and only get angrier. Big, tough, and an expression on his face that said 'pulverize.'

"You're late," he said in a voice that held all kinds of unpleasant things in store.

"Yeah, uh, sorry about that," I said trying to recover my bravado. "I uh, overslept. I am the terror that–that flaps in the night–"

"Where is the girl? Surely you weren't insane enough to bring her to...witness your triumph?"

"Pfft," I said, hiding my irritation at the interruption and the reminder that there was a girl back at the Tower who thought I was wrong. "I don't need her here to see me take you down. I have you right here where I want, alone with me. Hyyyyaaah!"

I moved into a jump kick, only for Bulba to grab me mid-air with one hand, pressing me between his palms like an accordion.

"I don't have time for this," he growled. "Where is the girl? She is the only reason I'm putting up with someone as _incompetent _as _you_. And you weren't even competent enough to show up on time! Now thanks to you the trap has been ruined, and I don't know where she is. I have no choice but to associate myself with a clown like you to get her!"

I struggled desperately to get free. Gosalyn...the kid was right, it _was_ a trap. And I'd fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. If his goons found her while I wasn't there, she'd be helpless. Well, about as _helpless_ as a hyperactive athletic tomboy could get, anyway.

"Just give up now while I have the upper hand." I croaked desparately, more out of the need to seem heroic, even in my position, than anything else.

Bulba grabbed me by the neck and pulled me so I was face to face with him, shaking his head. "Your ego really _is_ out of control. But that doesn't matter. You will tell me where she is once you break."

"Yeah? Why don't you do us _all _a favor and take a long walk off a short pier? You could use a bath!"

It wasn't until I saw his fist coming at me that I realized what a bad idea that was, only one bad idea among many that day. My final thought before it connected was how _stupid _I was for falling for that, especially since Gosalyn had tried to warn me.

..._Gosalyn..._

_Sorry, Gos. I was wrong, you were right_...

And then everything went black.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3

Gosalyn paced around in the kitchen area. _He's going to be all right_, she told herself. Hadn't he said that she should believe in him?

So, why did she have such a bad feeling about this whole thing? Because it had "trap" written all over it, duh! But, Darkwing seemed to know what he was doing. He'd gotten her away from Bulba's henchmen, right?

And he'd actually sat down and played video games with her. Nobody had done that since the old days, when Grampa would sit down and play Super Bario Mothers with her. Oh, there were the kids at the orphanage, but they had only played long enough to realize that she was better. Then it was "Oh, no, I'm already playing with someone else," or "Sorry, I have other things to do." But Darkwing was the first one since Grandpa to really play the games.

Darkwing reminded her of her grandfather, in a way. Oh, they actually had very little in common. Grampa had been a nerd who would talk for hours about his inventions, and how they would change the world. He had been a very good speaker, and would lecture college students as a side job while Gosalyn had played around with the students outside the lecture hall. But, Grampa understood her in a way that few of the other adults she'd met did. Darkwing was the same way, for all his big ego and a lack of ability to listen to anyone but himself. He'd actually called her spirit a _good _thing, something nobody but Grandpa had done.

Gosalyn slumped up the stairs to the room with the big computer in it and looked out the window. Darkwing might not even have gone if she hadn't blown off her stupid mouth about the whole thing being a trap. Darkwing was only the latest in a chain of people she'd driven away because of her big mouth. It was always like that. Somebody looking for a kid to adopt would come in, then walk away to choose another kid the minute they realized that she was not going to stay quiet.

Why should Darkwing be any different from the others?

"Oh Grampa," she said, looking at a passing cloud. "I'm sorry, I did it again...I actually liked him, too. So much for spirit."

It was hard to imagine Grampa floating around on the cloud like in those cards and TV shows. He'd never been the one to sit down all day, not when there were places to see, people to meet, and inventions to make things easier for everybody. Gosalyn imagined her grandfather's afterlife being more labs and mechanics and stuff.

Thinking about mechanics led her thoughts to the Ramrod. Gosalyn distinctly remembered the day that the picture those three bad guys had had been taken. A reporter had been in, taking a picture for the latest issue of Science Weekly, and she had become bored of all the talking and had leapt onto Grampa just before the picture had been taken. Grampa had thought it so funny that he'd asked the reporter to send them a copy, but mere days before the magazine came out...

Grampa had said that the Ramrod would make everyone's lives easier by making things easier to move, but he'd never said anything about an arming code. That was why that Bulba guy wanted her so badly, right? From everything Darkwing had told her about the guy, he was the last person she wanted near that thing.

What happened now? More waiting, of course. She reminded herself that it was only until Darkwing came back, or didn't. And while she waited, she could always watch some TV. Maybe Darkwing even had cable!

But when she tried the big TV on the computer, all she got were boring news reports. Someone's cat got stuck up a tree. Whoopdedoo. Some guy had somehow parked his car in the middle of a supermarket without anyone noticing. Bleh, boring.

And then the breaking news logo came on...

"We have breaking news. Our camera crew has just recorded live footage of the questionable vigilante Darkwing Duck meeting escaped convict Taurus Bulba. Evidence that the two are now allies..."

"_What?!_" Gosalyn could scarcely believe her ears. Sure, Darkwing was a raving egomaniac, but there was _no _way he'd be working for that Bulba guy. Especially since he was protecting her from him.

The next shot was of a blurry, shaky shot of a big guy who was most likely Bulba. It was hard to make out, but it looked like he was holding Darkwing by the neck.

"...In this footage recorded by our brave cameramen, we can see the two embracing like old friends."

The footage cut to a minute later, Bulba carrying what looked like an unconscious Darkwing to a platform attached to his airship, and being pulled up into it.

"...And now we see the two of them boarding Bulba's airship together, evidence that they are working together. After yesterday's events in which Darkwing kidnapped the granddaughter of the late inventor Gadwall Waddlemeyer, police have speculated that the two were allies, and this event confirms it. We have the chief of police about to make an official statement about these new developments..."

The reporter got no further, as Gosalyn smacked the power button so hard her palm hurt. She knew that whatever the police had to say wasn't anything good.

But if she went to the police, then she could convince them Darkwing was innocent. After all, Darkwing had supposedly "kidnapped" her, so if she proved him innocent there, she could prove that he hadn't stolen the Ramrod. She had to be careful, of course; that Hammerhead guy and his friends were trying to find her. Well, she'd beaten them up before, and she could do it again. Besides, she couldn't just sit around and do nothing. But, just in case the goon squad found her it would be nice to have some cool weapons to stop them...

It took a while, but Gosalyn was able to find Darkwing's weapon room. Chemistry sets and cannisters lay all over the table and crammed in the cabinets, and there was a whole rack of what looked like some kind of gun, along with other strange doodads and whatchamacallums.

"Keen gear!"

Gosalyn looked at all the thingies with an expression that Darkwing would have called a "Kid in a candy shop" kind of look. But, what did they do? She picked up one of the guns, aimed it at the open window, and squeezed the trigger. A cannister shot out of it, releasing gas of some sort as it crashed into a bird before falling into the bay below. The bird burst into tears, meaning presumably it'd been filled with tear gas.

Gosalyn was suddenly very glad she'd aimed for the window.

"Oops."

Okay, so testing out the guns probably _wasn't _a good idea. She looked down at the gun in her hand. That would certainly do for starters.

A half-hour later, Gosalyn sneaked out of the tower's lower entrance and onto the bridge. She'd "borrowed" a trenchcoat and one of those very wide hats he Darkwing wore for a disguise, not that it was working very well. She was getting odd looks from passersby as she darted from one hiding place to the next in an effort to avoid being seen. But it let her get to the police station without being seen by one of Bulba's mooks.

Once she got to the police station, Gosalyn slipped in intending to talk to the nearest policeman, but then a certain name caught her attention.

"Darkwing Duck's innocent, I tell you."

What was this? Wait a second, wasn't that the guy from the previous day? And indeed it was, the big redheaded guy with the pilot helmet from the day before was arguing with the cop at the desk.

"He didn't kidnap that kid. He was saving her from those guys who were after her!"

"If he's so innocent, why'd he rob the train?" The cop asked suspiciously.

"'Cause he _didn't_ rob the train. Look, I have no idea what happened, but D.W. wasn't one of the guys on the train."

"Yeah yeah, why's he with Bulba then?"

"_What?_"

"Haven't you been watching the news?" The cop asked. "They have footage of him walking off with Bulba."

"He did _not_!" Gosalyn intervened. "I know he didn't, because..."

"Kid, you need to be quiet and let the adults do their job."

"Listen here, you..."

The big guy grabbed her before she could do anything.

"Hey, I think you need to cool down, kid. Tell you what, I'll take you out for ice cream, and you can tell me what happened. Okay?"

Gosalyn thought about it for a moment before concluding that the big guy was most likely the closest thing she had to someone she could trust at that moment.

"Okay. Let's go..." She couldn't resist a subtle dig at the cop. "Wouldn't want to stop _mister policeman _from not doing his work!"

"So, um," the big guy said as they exited the police station. "Might as well introduce myself. I'm Launchpad McQuack."

"Gosalyn Waddlemeyer."

"Huh, that name sounds familiar..."

"It should, I'm the kid that Darkwing _didn't _kidnap!"

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before snapping his fingers.

"Wait, aren't you the girl from yesterday?"

"Duh. And you're the guy who seemed to know him."

"Well, I'm his biggest fan."

"He has a fan...? Never mind. Look, like I told you, Darkwing's been captured by Taurus Bulba, and we need to save him!"

"_What?_" Launchpad's eyes bulged out in shock. "He's been captured? I can't believe it!"

"Yeah, neither do the police. They think Darkwing's _working _with Bulba."

"That's crazy, he'd _never_ do anything like that."

Gosalyn scowled down at the sidewalk below them. "_They_ don't know that. And they aren't gonna listen to either of _us_."

"Aw cheer up, Gosalyn." Launchpad put an arm around her shoulder. "Hey, why don't we go over to my hangar? I've got this friend from Duckburg and I can call him from there. He'll take that Bulba guy down like a ton of bricks."

Hangar? _This guy can fly a plane?_ She thought, as the beginning of a plan germinated in her mind.

"This is it," Launchpad announced a while later.

Gosalyn looked at the nearest ramshackle hangar, heaps of rusted plane parts, and the weed-filled runway, and mentally pronounced herself underwhelmed.

"I'll just look up my friend's number and he'll be down here lickety-toot," Launchpad continued.

"Before you do that," Gosalyn quickly intervened. "Could I see all the cool planes you've got?"

"Well, most of them aren't much to look at, but I've got one that I've been working on..."

"Great! Let's go!" Before the big guy could object, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him in the direction of the hangar.

"W-wait, Gosalyn!"

"Why should I? We need to r...I mean, I need to see that plane!"

"It's not in there, it's over in the next hangar!"

"Why didn't you _say_ so?" Gosalyn demanded irritably.

The hangar was in slightly better condition than the first one. At least the repairs on the roof were done with more than just a plank or two. Once inside, Launchpad walked over to an enormous tarp-covered form.

"I've been working on this baby since I came here a year ago. I was hoping D.W.'d see it and let me be his sidekick. I call it the Thunderquack."

He whipped off the tarp revealing a sleek red and purple jet, which was shaped like a duck's head.

"Wow, major-league impressive." Were those missile launchers under the wings? This guy was hardcore!

"Yeah. C'mon, let's get back to the first hangar. I'll call my friend from there."

"Why can't we rescue Darkwing _now_? We can use the Thunderquack."

Launchpad paused, the desire to rescue his idol warring with his common sense. Not that he had much of _that_.

"I dunno Gos, that sounds a bit dangerous..."

"You have _missile launchers _on this thing. How dangerous can you get?"

"Uh..."

"C'mon, Darkwing's in trouble. We can't just sit here and wait for your friend. Besides, if we rescue him, he'll make you his sidekick."

"Really?"

Gosalyn felt the urge to burst out laughing at his puppy-like eagerness. "Really."

"_Yahoo!_"Launchpad punched up at the air in his enthusiasm. "Let's go!"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 4

The first thing I remember after my unfortunate encounter with Taurus Bulba is that my head hurt. As did the rest of me. And I was now tied up and dangling from a walkway that had undoubtedly been part of the early Penitentary decor Bulba's airship boasted. I had no weapons, even my hat was gone. Not that it mattered, of course; I had blown it. I had not only been captured by the bad guys, I had done it to myself. Who else would have fallen for such an _obvious_ trap? Me and my stupid headlines! My only consolation was that they hadn't found the Tower and Gosalyn, even with my stupidity working in their favor. I hoped she would have more sense than I did and stay in the Tower.

_Gosalyn_...

I might not have known the kid for very long, but even just under a day with her was enough to put her in my heart in a way that nobody else had. The crazy idea I'd had earlier nibbled around at my conscience, unsuccessfully trying to break in. I shook my head, ignoring the pain it caused. There was no way that was going to happen with me captured like this.

"Well well, look who's _hangin' _around." That nasally voice could only come from Hammerhead Hannigan. I could see him walking down the catwalk, Hoof and Mouth following in his wake.

"Looks like our hero's on the _ropes_," Hammerhead continued. "Got all _tied _up in his work, right?"

"I'd say he's hanging by a _thread_," Hoof agreed.

They were there, no doubt, to gloat over my idiocy. Well, let them. I deserved it for falling for such a stupidly _obvious _trap. I deserved it, I _deserved_ it...

The three henchmen shared a mutual look at my self-recriminating silence, as if they hadn't been expecting me to act like this. No doubt they were expecting me to snark back, join the chain of puns. Something, _anything_.

"Uh, he's not talkin', boss," Mouth looked around nervously. "Do you think he's got laryngitis or somethin'?"

"Don't be a bigger moron than you already are," Hammerhead sighed. "C'mon, let's lose this loser an' go throw the laundry out the airlock."

They walked away laughing around the bend and out of sight. I sighed quietly and closed my eyes. They were right, I _was _a loser. My life was nothing but case files and chemistry sets. I could have had a _life_, a real job...

...a _family_...

But _noooo_, I had to be a _clown _in a mask and cape. It was a wonder nobody had busted a gut laughing at me! Now I was here, hanging from this catwalk, probably about to get tortured or worse...

And I didn't even have someone to call for help.

...

The rumbling of the Thunderquack's engines was oddly not as loud as Gosalyn expected. The few times she'd been on a plane had been to accompany her grandfather to foreign lands for the occasional lecture overseas. This kind of flying was a lot different, in fact it was the most _awesome _thing she'd ever experienced! Now she could see the city spread out before her, the afternoon sun illuminating a patchwork of skyscrapers and smaller buildings with roads wrapping around them.

"Keen gear!" She exclaimed. "This is awesome!"

Launchpad laughed happily. "I've been working on it for a year, I think I got all the bugs out..."

The engine sputtered for a moment and the jet dropped like a stone before it came back on again.

"...Well, most of them anyway," Launchpad finished.

Gosalyn gave him a suspicious glance, but didn't say anything. After all, it was the only chance she had of rescuing Darkwing.

"So, where do we find D.W., Gos?"

"They had some airship, I saw it in the news. It looked like a bull's head."

"What?" Launchpad glanced out the window to his left. "Like that thing over there? I dunno, that looks more like an ox than a bull."

"That's it!"

"It is...? Huh, guess this guy needs a new designer. Okay, Gosaroonie, let's go!"

The airship was big enough that Gosalyn's entire orphanage could have fit in there twice over, with enough room for a game of street hockey. The walls looked like they were made of steel, possibly even strong enough to stand up to the Thunderquack's missiles.

"How are we gonna get in there?" Gosalyn wondered out loud.

"Uh...knock on the door?"

"Launchpad, do you really think they'd be stupid enough to..." Gosalyn paused. "Don't answer that."

...

Taurus Bulba was in a better mood now that he'd had some sleep. And now all he had to do was to..._persuade_ that do-gooder to give up the location of the girl. That would not take too long, since he'd effectively broken Darkwing with the revelation that the incompetent fool had practically waltzed into his trap. Soon the girl would be in his hands and with her the arming code for the Ramrod...

Bulba knew what he'd do with it, of course. First he'd hit the city's gold depository as a test run. If the rumors were true about the Ramrod about there being few limits to what the machine could move, then he'd have enough gold to finance his own army. From there taking over the city would be a cakewalk. He would expand his budding empire to other cities, using the gold to finance his own men in political positions and effectively take over from within. And if anyone tried to stop him, they could witness what the Ramrod was capable of. Of course, mere cities weren't enough. He would turn his business into an unstoppable juggernaut, and take over the entire world!

All he needed was the code.

The duck was still hanging where Bulba had left him dangling above the catwalk. Fully conscious and eyes seemingly stuck on the floor.

"Well hello, Darkwing. I see you are awake and ready to discuss the girl. Where is she?"

"Drop dead."

Bulba sighed. "I see you need some...persuasion."

He grabbed the duck by his scrawny neck, lifting him to eye level.

"_Where is she_?"

...

Clovis noticed the unknown bogey on the radar. Whatever it was, it was coming right at the airship and _fast_. She hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to let her boss know. Bulba had given explicit orders that he wasn't to be disturbed by anyone during his little "chat," but he would be even more furious if something went wrong...

She made her decision not to alert him. After all, the airship's walls were made of solid steel that could take a lot of abuse. Besides, on the unlikely chance that something _did_ go wrong, she could always blame those three goons. She booted up the airship's missile system.

...

"This had better work," Gosalyn grumbled. It was insane, audacious, and about as _dumb_ as a plan could get.

"You have their frequency on the radio, right?" She asked.

"Sure do," Launchpad answered.

"And you remember your part, right?" The guy seemed too...honest, for lack of a better word to be a good actor.

"Don't worry about it. I got this."

"Okay, here goes." Gosalyn looked down at the loose ropes that supposedly secured her.

_This had better work, because we're in big trouble if it doesn't._

The lights from the airship suddenly trained on them as if having just noticed them even as Launchpad turned on the Thunderquack's radio system.

"Calling the airship, calling the airship."

The radio cracked into life.

"You'd better have a good reason for being here," a female voice responded. "Identify yourself."

"I'm Low-Flyin' McQuack," Launchpad said in what he presumably thought was "acting" with an evil-sounding drawl that came across as more Western than Villain. "I'm the baddest, evilest, no-good flyer in these here parts, an' I hear you're lookin' for a certain little lady."

"You'll never get away with this!" Gosalyn bellowed at the top of her lungs.

"You'd better be quiet if you know what's good for you," Launchpad continued in the same stilted tone. "Or you'll be sleepin' with the birds!"

"Bring her in," the female voice sighed in an exasperated tone, as if not being fooled by the less than stellar acting. "Taurus Bulba will reward you handsomely when he gets a chance to talk to you."

The lights remained on them, however the mouth of the airship opened up.

Launchpad turned off the radio. "It worked!"

Gosalyn didn't answer him out loud, instead trying to convince herself that it would all be smooth sailing from there.

Right?

The Thunderquack landed in what had presumably been the central area of the prison, which hadn't changed greatly since the prison's transformation into an airship. Launchpad popped open the canopy and jumped out to walk to the other side of the jet.

"Here comes our welcoming party," Gosalyn whispered harshly, eyeing the arriving Hammerhead, Hoof, and Mouth with a certain amount of justifiable trepidation.

"Yeah, that's the girl alright," Hammerhead was saying into a walkie-talkie. "Okay."

He put the walkie-talkie away.

"You McQuack?"

"Yeah," Launchpad said in the same badly-acted drawl he'd used earlier. "An' I got the kid."

"Let go of me!" Gosalyn pretended to struggle, but in reality she was waiting for the appropriate moment to bust loose.

"Not so fast, little lady." Launchpad pretended to struggle with her, grabbing the Thunderquack to keep his balance, and before any of the three henchmen could react slipped his hand in and hit a button. Instantly a net popped out of the jet's mouth-part, engulfing and ensnaring them.

"How's _that _for a haul?" Launchpad asked smugly. "I really caught some whoppers, didn't I?"

"That was awesome," Gosalyn said pulling the ropes off herself.

"You double-crossing...!" Hammerhead recovered himself a lot faster than either of his mooks, and after struggling for a moment moved enough to pull a gun out of his jacket. Gosalyn and Launchpad yelped as the bullets narrowly missed them.

"Let's get outta here!" Gosalyn yelled.

The two would-be rescuers took off running in the direction of the nearest exit, and deeper into the bowels of Bulba's airship.

...

And now I return to my point of view. Dangling helplessly, weapons gone, feeling sorry for myself, being interrogated by my nemesis. I think that about covers it. But, I still hadn't broken. At least not where Gosalyn's whereabouts were concerned. He'd never get _that _out of me.

I could only pray that the kid stayed in the Tower where nobody would find her.

"I am running out of patience, you costumed clown" Bulba said as he ground me into the bars surrounding the catwalk. "Where is the girl?"

"Safe," I could only croak. In the last twenty minutes, I'd been pummeled, creamed, the usual. But this was nothing. I'd taken hits from worse, in fact he didn't hit _nearly_ as hard as that one time I'd had a cruise liner plow into me, and I'd been able to take down the pirates who'd taken over the ship ten minutes later.

"She's safe, you'll never find her..."

A meaty hand grabbed my neck again, but Bulba was suddenly distracted as a female voice came over the prison's apparently intact loudspeaker system.

"Mr. Bulba, we have a situation. Please come to the bridge."

"What?" Bulba dropped me so that I was dangling again. "Clovis would not interrupt me like this unless it was a true emergency. Consider yourself lucky...until the next time."

"Yeah? I'll bring the cookies," I ground out woozily. My head swam and my neck felt like spaghetti. I waited for the dizziness to subside as I tried to figure out my next step. Bulba might have been right about me being a clown and an idiot, but if he thought I was going to back down and let him get his hands on Gosalyn, he was dead wrong. I had to do something, escape, sabotage his efforts from the inside. The Ramrod. If I could destroy it, then he wouldn't want Gosalyn anymore. I tried to wriggle my way loose, but the ropes were too tight.

It was no use.

No, that wasn't true. Maybe I could do something, swing myself in such a way that the rope holding me would rub against the bars of the catwalk and fray. I struggled to maneuver myself into the right position, only for something unexpected to careen into me, sending me spinning.

Or was the phrase some_one_ unexpected?


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 5

It was very difficult to see who my assailant was when I was spinning like a top. Even as they grabbed me, the world kept spinning.

"Darkwing!"

Then I was squeezed again so tightly I couldn't breathe. For a moment, I thought that Bulba was back. I looked down, my blurred vision instead focusing on someone else.

Someone who was clearly _not _in the Tower.

"G-Gosalyn?"

"_Duh_, who else would it be?"

Then the ropes around me were loosened, and I was lowered to the catwalk.

"You...you shouldn't..." She hadn't stayed in the Tower. _Why _hadn't she stayed in the Tower? For one moment I was furious, both at her and that pilot guy who was untying me. She could have been captured, or _worse! _And why was that idiot pilot bringing her there in the first place?

And yet as angry as I was, there was something else. They had come for _me_. They cared about me, enough to risk their_ lives _to save me, even though I was just a clown in a mask and cape who leapt into the most obvious traps at the first chance.

I wrapped my now-free arms right back around her.

"...You came for me," I finished in a voice verging on tears.

"Well, you were in trouble," the pilot guy said. "We couldn't just leave you."

"Yeah, uh, what was your name again?" I asked.

"Launchpad McQuack."

"Mind if I call you 'sidekick?' Because I could really use some help taking this guy down."

His eyes widened, then he let out an ear-piercing whoop.

_"Yahoo-hoo-hoo!"_

"I told you he'd do it," Gosalyn said in a smug voice.

"We need to get out of here," I said as I pulled myself away from Gosalyn and onto my feet. The dizziness had mostly subsided by that point. "Bulba probably knows you're here, so we have to move fast!"

In fact, that was most likely the reason he'd left. Which gave us very little time to escape.

The other two exchanged glances.

"They're kinda already after us," Launchpad admitted.

"But, I brought some things to fight with." Gosalyn pulled off the old trenchcoat she was wearing, which I belatedly recognized as one I'd used once when I'd needed a disguise. She was also wearing one of my older hats. Well, I'd lost the one I'd been wearing in that disastrous encounter earlier, along with my weapons. Then she pulled out one of the newer gas guns I'd been working on the day before this had all started, as well as a half-dozen canisters and attachments. I identified one of them as tear gas, three of them as smoke bombs, a lot bigger than the smoke pellets I used for my entrances, and the others as minor explosives.

"Oh–Be careful with those! Here, I'm better off handling those, since I know how to use them." Even as I relieved her of all the weapons, I stifled a shudder at what might have happened if she'd dropped those last two in the wrong way.

"I even brought your hat."

I took the hat with a hand that only trembled slightly.

"Let's go."

After about two or three minutes of moving briskly through a series of corridors, Launchpad looked over at Gosalyn.

"We took two rights and a left from that last laundry room, right?"

"I thought it was two lefts and a right." Gosalyn looked around at our surroundings. "Actually, I don't think we've been here before."

"Wait, you're meaning to tell me that we're _lost?_" I demanded irritably.

"Well, it's not like this place has convenient maps with 'you are here' marked on them," Gosalyn snapped back. "Look, we parked the Thunderquack in that big place in the center, so if we go there we'll find it, right?"

I stifled the urge to point out that an enemy base wasn't the sort of place that _anyone _wanted to get lost in, but going by Launchpad's comment earlier, I suspected that they'd been running from Bulba's henchmen.

"Hey, what's this big door here?" Launchpad pointed to a huge closed entrance up ahead. It was one of those doors that had "secure" written all over it, complete with keypad and stuff. I walked up to it and pushed on it. It didn't move.

"That's unusual," I said. "This place used to be a prison, but I can't see Bulba keeping something locked up like this unless it's something big, like the engine or the steering, or–"

And then it hit me. Gosalyn's eyes widened as she came to the same conclusion.

"The Ramrod!" We both yelled in unison. Launchpad, clearly having no idea what was going on, looked from one of us to the other in confusion.

"The what?"

"The Ramrod. It's my grandfather's invention that Bulba stole."

"And why he wants Gos so badly," I finished. "He thinks she has the code to make it work. We have to find some way to destroy it before he can find some way to use it."

"We have to get in there, first," Launchpad looked at the big, heavy door. "If I had the Thunderquack, we'd be in there by now."

"So what?" I asked pointedly. "Here, let's try something."

I pulled out the gas gun, armed it with one of the explosives, and aimed.

"Stand back."

The explosive bounced off the door, then went off as intended.

"That did it!" Gosalyn exclaimed.

But as the smoke cleared, it was painfully obvious that the door was too strong. There wasn't even a dent.

"...Not," she finished.

"This extra-durable entry must require something more subtle," I decided. I pulled off my hat. Sure enough, there was a hat pin inside. I grabbed it and looked for a likely hole in the door's security system.

Gosalyn looked at me curiously. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to pick the lock."

"I dunno, D.W., that looks a bit dangerous," Launchpad said.

"Yeah? Well then, let's get dangerous." I retorted as I put the hat back on. "There's nothing better for beating brand-new technology than old-school think–"

The next thing I knew, electricity was coursing through me.

"–ing," I finished as I slumped down to the floor.

"You were saying?" Gosalyn asked pointedly as she looked down at me.

"You think you can do any better, now's the time," I croaked as I passed her the hat pin.

"I'm sure she could do better than _you_," said a new voice. One I recognized.

_Oh, no_...

Taurus Bulba. Along with Hammerhead and his goons. And their guns. We were in deep sludge.

"Gosalyn," Bulba said. "It's a pleasure to finally..._meet _you."

"Drop dead!" She snapped back.

"Oh, I see you two are really two of a kind." Bulba remarked. "Too arrogant to remember this place has hundreds of _security cameras_? I knew your every move."

"Yeah?" I grabbed a smoke canister and put it into the gas gun. "How about this one?"

I was going to grab Gosalyn and Launchpad and run again while Bulba and his goons were distracted, but just as the canister flew at them Bulba reached out a hand and grabbed it.

"This is no longer amusing," he said as he crushed it harmlessly without releasing as much as a whiff of smoke. "Now the girl..."

"Grampa never told me any code!" Gosalyn bellowed.

Bulba paused. "That may be true. But, I've always considered myself a gambling man."

He nodded to Hammerhead, and the next thing I knew I was forcefully pushed to the ground by Hoof. As I struggled, I could see Launchpad in a similar situation with Mouth. Then I felt a gun muzzle pressed to my head.

"I'll never get the code out of Darkwing, he has too much..._spirit_." Bulba said. "But you are the one who has it, yes? The code! No tricks! Or else..."

"I don't know the code!" Gosalyn protested. She sounded like she was about to cry. "I don't know it! Stop it, please!"

"You're a real big man, Bulba," I said sarcastically. "Putting a child through something like this? You're just evil."

"Oh yes, I am evil." Bulba laughed. "And I will get the code, one way or another. Now, Gosalyn, the code?"

"But _she _doesn't know the code." I ignored the gun pressed tightly to my head. "_I_ do."

"Oh, do you?"

"Let Gosalyn and Launchpad go," I flinched a bit, knowing how much I was effectively handing this guy. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything."

"Excellent." Bulba rubbed his hands together. "I knew we could come to an _accommodation_. Hammerhead! Keep them locked up until we have the Ramrod in position to fire. We can't have our '_guests_' running out before we have a chance to test our new toy."

"Yes, boss," Hammerhead said, keeping the gun to my head as he pulled me to my feet.

They locked us in what had been one of the solitary confinement blocks, a small space barely big enough for the three of us. Gosalyn leaned against the wall, looking drained. I couldn't blame her.

"I'm sorry, Launchpad," she mumbled in a defeated tone. "If I'd waited for your friend, we wouldn't be here."

"But Gosalyn," Launchpad said. "Even if we hadn't tried to rescue D.W, he'd still be in trouble. Besides, even Giz would have trouble with this guy"

"And I got caught because I _didn't _listen to you," I added, even as I wondered who this "Giz" was. This wasn't the time to ask. "That wasn't your fault."

She didn't move. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.

"Look, Gos, I know I haven't known you for very long, but you're the reason I'm still fighting back. I mean it. Until I met you, all I could think of was myself. _My _headlines. _My _reputation. _My _ eight-by-ten glossies. _Me_. _You're_ the one who got Avenue Fighter 4 to work. _You're _the one that gave me the strength to keep going, even after my stupidity got me caught. _You're _the reason we all came together, and _you're_ the reason why we're all going to get out of this okay. Gosalyn, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have a life worth _living_."

The life came back to her eyes and she leaned into me.

"Thanks, Darkwing."

The crazy idea I'd had earlier was back. I told myself that serious contemplation of the idea could at least wait until we were out of there even as I leaned back against her.

"Any time."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 6

It was the middle of the night when they brought the three of us back out. I would have said it was Darkwing Duck's finest hour, if the situation weren't so dire.

The airship's hangar, or at least what I guessed to be the hangar, looked like it had been the prison's main courtyard in the penitentiary days. I could see a red-and-purple jet shaped like a duck's head sitting at the far end before Hammerhead prodded me forward with his gun. Was that the Thunderquack the others had mentioned? I wouldn't be too surprised. I made a mental note to ask Launchpad about it, if we survived this. I could see Bulba's overgrown turkey-vulture perched on top of one of the higher rails, before my attention was caught by the invention that started this whole mess.

The Ramrod was now bolted down to the airship's "mouth." No doubt in a position where it could fire down at any target in the city if Bulba so wished. I saw Gosalyn shivering as she looked at it, probably being unpleasantly reminded of her grandfather, and reached down to take her hand. It wasn't much reassurance, but it was better than nothing.

"You two are close, eh?" Bulba asked maliciously from behind us. "How trusting. How..._fortunate_."

Before I could react, he grabbed Gosalyn, tearing her away from me as he aimed my gas gun at her.

"The code, Darkwing? We wouldn't want anything to _happen_ to your young friend. For instance, if this should go off..."

I grit my teeth and stepped up to the Ramrod. There were those cursed colorful buttons that had had been the key to figuring out all this, and it was all I could do to avoid smashing them. Instead, all I did was punch the colors from the song into it. Even as I did, I heard the machine purring to life, and as I pressed the last button, the small screen in the control panel lit up with an interface menu.

"Excellent." Bulba pulled his ponderous patilla to the controls, still holding Gosalyn and my gas gun.

"I've done my part of the deal," I said. "Let Gosalyn and Launchpad go."

"Not before I test." Bulba now stood behind me. "As planned, the first target is the city gold depository..."

There was the sound of metal creaking, and I felt a rush of air as the airship's mouth slowly opened. I had a dizzying view of the city below me, with the gold depository across the bay.

"Now, Darkwing, would you steal all the gold for me?"

I didn't know how to work the Ramrod, but the controls seemed relatively intuitive. I flinched at what I was being forced to do, even as I pressed the buttons to aim the machine. A final button press made beam came out of the Ramrod's nozzle, encapsulating the building, and slowly tearing it to shreds. I could see security guards fleeing, and devoutly hoped there was nobody left when the building finally came apart, revealing all the gold inside. A pulled lever brought the tons of gold over to the airship, finally bringing it to rest a few feet away.

"And so it begins," Bulba laughed as he walked off the Ramrod and over to the newly-arrived piles.

"Then, you're done with Gosalyn and Launchpad?" I asked, following after him. Bulba merely smirked at me. I had a bad feeling that things were about to get nasty, especially when that overgrown buzzard flew over and picked Launchpad up in its talons.

"Oh, quite. She and the other one can now have an unfortunate 'accident.' Just like her grandfather."

It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. All I could think of was that _he _was the reason Gosalyn had gone through so much grief and heartbreak over the last few months. Oh, it was doubtful that he personally was responsible for Gadwall Waddlemeyer's death. More likely it was Hammerhead and his two goons, but they worked for him...

And he was planning on doing the same to Gosalyn?

I didn't think so.

In almost the same instant, two things happened. Bulba suddenly yelped and dropped Gosalyn, clutching his hand. I caught a brief glimpse of a bent almost beyond recognition hatpin in her grip even as I moved to kick him in the stomach. Sure, my foot hurt like heck doing it (Seriously, that guy was made of steel!), but it gave me great satisfaction to see him doubled over in pain. This also had the effect of making him drop my gas gun.

"That's not happening," I said, grabbing the gun and getting between him and her. "Not today, not _ever!_"

I unloaded the explosive canister and put in one of my smoke bombs. The instant I fired, purple smoke engulfed the area, blinding Bulba and his goons, including the bird that held Launchpad. It wouldn't last, of course; the wind blowing through the open "mouth" started to quickly disperse it.

"Gos, get out of here!" I yelled over the din.

"But..."

"No 'buts.' Get to the Thunderquack!"

I could see her sprinting across the way, but couldn't see if she made it. I had to deactivate the Ramrod so it couldn't do any more damage. And what better way to do it than by distracting Bulba and his goons? I prepared another smoke canister and this time shot it off about twenty feet away.

"I am the terror that flaps in the night..."

"There, shoot the smoke!" I heard Bulba bellowing, then gunshots in that direction.

"I am the loose gear that ruins your entire plan!" I pulled myself onto the Ramrod again.

"...I am Darkwing Duck!"

I saw Hammerhead through the clearing smoke raise his gun, only to be stopped by Bulba.

"No! Not while he's on the Ramrod, get the girl! Darkwing is mine!"

I could only pray that Gosalyn was swift enough to evade them. Meanwhile, I had my own problems. Taurus Bulba was advancing on me with blood in his eye and violence in his mind. I had to hurry.

"How do I shut this thing down?" I asked myself irritably.

The only way I could think of was to hit random buttons, but that was definitely _not_ a good idea. I looked around frantically for an "off" button, something, _anything_ to turn the machine off, but there was no time. I saw Bulba bearing down on me in time to dodge a blow which seriously dented the Ramrod's railing.

"Gyah!" I barely dodged another blow, and another. Every time I did, Bulba grew even angrier. In between avoidances, I could see Gosalyn and Hammerhead's trio also fighting. Gos had got her hands on a stick of rebar, I think it had been part of the depository. She was effectively holding them off, but I couldn't see any more than that before I had to dodge again. This time I didn't just dodge, I grabbed his arm and twisted it as hard as I could. Bulba's bellow of pain was more than worth the effort, but I wasn't quick enough to evade his other fist and took the edge of it. The hit sent me pancaking into the Ramrod's console, then Bulba grabbed me.

"I underestimated you once, Darkwing Duck," he said. "This time, you simply _die_."

I struggled to get loose before he could inflict that final blow, then something _whooshed _overhead, clipping him so that instead of hitting me, his fist connected with the Ramrod. And went right through it.

The resulting explosion blew both of us off the Ramrod's platform, fortunately in different directions. I staggered to my feet quickly enough to see the thing that had hit Bulba careen into a crash landing right through Hammerhead and his goons. That "thing" proved to be Bulba's vulture, and the one who seemed to be riding it...

"Like I say, if it's got wings, I can _crash _it." Launchpad announced.

"Launchpad, how did you..." I could only gape.

"Huh? Oh, I rode one of these things a couple of years ago. It's pretty easy if you know what you're doing."

"Never mind. Let's get out of here! I think the Ramrod's gonna blow!"

There was no other explanation I could give for the ominous noises, alarms, and sparks the machine was making. Even as I said that, odd beams, almost like droplets, started leaking out of the nozzle. Everything in the immediate area touched by those beams, mostly the remains of the rail and other debris from the fight, started floating, and it looked like the beams were getting stronger.

"You don't have to tell me twice," Launchpad said. "The Thunderquack's over there!"

I could see Gosalyn already climbing into the cockpit of that red-and-purple jet, and felt a wave of relief. She was safe, at least for now. The feeling that this was nearly over quickly faded I saw Bulba pick himself up from the rubble and start moving toward the Thunderquack, probably looking to use Gosalyn as a hostage again.

Or worse.

"Hoo, boy," I muttered under my breath. Not good, that was very not good. There was no way I'd make it to the Thunderquack before Bulba, but if I kept him away from the others, they'd have a better chance of making it out...

_And maybe this costumed clown can still be a hero_, I thought.

"D.W., what're you doing?" Launchpad yelled as I stopped running to the Thunderquack and turned to intercept Bulba.

"Don't worry about me," I called over my shoulder. "Get moving! I'll catch up!"

"But, Darkwing," Gosalyn cried. "That's..."

"Dangerous, I know." I took a breath. "Let's get dangerous."

I want to take a moment here to appreciate how _awesome _I was at that particular moment. I wish I had a video camera or something, so I could watch me being awesome like that all the time. In fact, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. Memo to self: Bring the video camera next time I go on patrol. No wait, never mind. I already tried that, it didn't work out too well, and ended up with me covered in birthday cake and ice cubes. Gosalyn still brings it out every now and then to annoy me or as blackmail material when she wants something.

It wasn't exactly how I expected _that _case to end.

But, back to my story. Bulba was too enraged to stop, so I had to stop him.

"So happy to see me?" I snarked dryly. "Guess I have to do something about that."

I struck a karate pose, then at the last minute not only dodged, but stuck my foot out so that he tripped over it. Bulba went flying into a nearby beam. getting his head stuck, then I heard the Thunderquack's engines powering up behind me.

"It's over, Bulba," I added. "And this time, you'll be in a non-portable prison!"

Then the airship around me lurched and began turning upside-down. I could see the floor below me glowing with the same beams of light that were coming from the Ramrod. I realized that the leaking beams from the Ramrod were now shooting in multiple directions, and apparently strong enough to affect the entire airship. The massive monstrosity was now at the mercy of the malfunctioning machine. I found myself sliding to the side of the room, thankfully nowhere near that ton of gold which crashed into the wall about thirty feet away, making the airship's roll even more intense.

"Grab onto something!" I heard Hammerhead yell. I looked over to see him and Hoof holding on to a catwalk while looking up at a floating Mouth. Mouth wasn't the brightest of henchmen, and out of desparation grabbed the nearest thing.

"...Not _me_, you lunkhead!" Hammerhead screeched indignantly. "Hoof, save us!"

But Hoof was also floating, having been hit by another beam. I saw them drift in the direction of the airship's still-open "mouth," screaming all the way. I couldn't see any sign of Bulba's buzzard, either, and I guessed that it'd had the sense to fly away when things got hairy or had been caught by the Ramrod's anti-gravity beams and was floating harmlessly away.

And so it was down to me and the others. And Bulba.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 7

The Thunderquack, with the others in it, had thankfully just taken off when the airship started rolling. It now hovered at a fair distance away from the malfunctioning machine, but then fired two missiles–_missiles? _Where had a goofball like Launchpad got _missiles?!_–right at the Ramrod, finally blowing it up.

For one moment, I hoped that would be the end of all the shaking and pitching for the airship, but there was another rumble and the floor shook under my feet. I could hear a loud explosion coming from the machinery within, and I realized that it was likely doomed.

"...I think this is the point where the hero makes his dramatic exit," I laughed nervously.

Then the airship tilted again, this time "mouth" downwards, leaving me sliding across the floor. It was all I could do to grab one of the few solid objects still remaining, what looked like a control panel to something or other, but whatever it was it looked like it'd taken some damage at some point in the fight and didn't have any buttons left to press. I could see the tons of gold sliding by, hopefully to harmlessly hit the bay.

The Thunderquack hovered over to me, but the slope of the floor was too much to land on. The cockpit popped open to reveal Launchpad and Gosalyn.

"D.W.! Get on!"

"I know!" I scrambled myself so that I was practically standing on the tilted control panel. There were only a couple of feet between me and the jet, but just as I was about to jump there was another massive explosion from within the airship. Caught off balance, I mistimed my jump and barely wound up clinging to the rim of the jet's "beak."

"D.W!"

"Darkwing!"

Launchpad tried to climb out of the cockpit, but I stopped him.

"There's no time! _Go!_"

Launchpad paused, then nodded and closed the cockpit's hatch. Then the Thunderquack, now with me awkwardly holding on to it, turned and started flying down towards the airship's exit. I saw the floor of the airship where I'd just been crumble under another explosion, as I realized that there wasn't much time left. I could only hope that we'd make it out.

Then, something hit me, something big. I found myself falling, crashing into the razed remains of the Ramrod. I barely had time to realize that that something was Taurus Bulba, silhouetted against the raging flames, staring down at me with pure hate.

That's the last thing I remember other than hoping the others would be safe.

...

Launchpad had to admit, the situation wasn't going so well.

It wasn't the debris that was raining down on them, as much as it was keeping the Thunderquack flying smoothly enough that Darkwing wouldn't fall off.

"Hold on, Gos!" He yelled as the Thunderquack took a hard hit from a falling piece of a prison cell door. Thankfully, it hit the reinforced cockpit rather than the beak part where he could see Darkwing's hands still clinging on.

"Darkwing!" Gosalyn yelled. Launchpad caught a quick glimpse of that Bulba guy standing on the remains of a catwalk and tried to evade, but it was too late. Darkwing was already out of sight.

This left him with a heart-wrenching, split-second decision. He could go back and save D.W., but there was no time. The airship was nearly entirely engulfed in flames and he knew that any attempt in saving his idol would likely result in both he and Gosalyn dying. So he stepped on the accelerator, feeling sick to his stomach even as they flew out of the airship.

"Darkwing! We have to go back for hi–" Gosalyn's plea was interrupted by another explosion, this time big enough that it engulfed most of the airship behind them, causing a shockwave big enough that Launchpad had to wrestle with the Thunderquack's controls. Then the entire monstrosity plunged into the bay. It wasn't until they were clear that he realized the enormity of what had happened. D.W. gone? No way, that wasn't happening. Maybe D.W. had been blown clear by that last explosion. They were near the entrance, right?

"He couldn't be," Gosalyn mumbled in a broken tone. "He couldn't–"

The worst part was that he had nothing to say to that.

...

Floating.

I was floating, that was the next thing I remember, floating in what was probably the bay. In considerable pain? Of course, very much. But alive. What had happened? The last explosion must have blown me clear into the bay. I opened my eyes to see nothing but fading clouds and the edge of dawn, and it occurred to me that after everything, all the worrying, the fighting, the kicking bad-guy butt, it was finally over.

Now what?

I'd go back to crime-fighting, of course. It would take more than one supervillain to stop Darkwing Duck. But Gosalyn...

The idea I'd had was back, but now I had the time and motivation to take a good look at it. The kid needed a family, big-time. Someone who understood her, someone who cared about her.

Why couldn't that someone be _me? _

But, it was crazy. I had no experience being a parent. I was a crime-fighter, not a father, yet Gosalyn wasn't an ordinary kid. She was an extraordinary one, and she needed a family that wasn't ordinary either.

So did I.

That meant I would have to go back to being the old, "normal" Drake Mallard, part-time. There was a name I hadn't thought of in a long time, an identity I'd shed in favor of an awesomer alter-ego. I wondered what my parents would say when their son, who had last been heard from five years ago, turned up with an adoptive daughter in tow. I'd have to get a house, furniture, use that money I'd been saving up from all the minor cases I'd solved, change my sleeping schedule to reflect this new life.

But first, I had to take care of myself. Once I reached land, it wouldn't be too hard to hide the Darkwing costume, then report to the police in my underclothes and tell them I'd been robbed by a trio of miscreants who matched the description of Hammerhead Hannigan and his two mooks. Then a trip to the hospital to get better...

And then I could start making plans in earnest.

...

_Bulba, Local vigilante feared dead_, the newspaper headline read. The elderly duck sighed as he put the paper down. This Darkwing Duck had had potential as a freelance agent, but now...

"Sir, are you needing anything?" J. Gander Hooter's second in command, Grizzlikov, asked in his usual thick accent.

"No, not anymore." Hooter looked at the paper again. Grizzlikov followed his gaze.

"You cannot be thinking of _tiring _that clown!"

"It's _hiring_, Vlad. And yes, I was. We need some new blood here, and this Darkwing might have been what we needed."

"Well, we need to look elsewhere, for he seems to have lost all his blood."

"Actually, I'm not so sure about that," Hooter said calmly scanning the article. "They haven't found a body yet. That means there is still hope, at least."

Grizzlikov snorted. "Even if he lives, he seems unreliable. And you think he will help SHUSH defeat F.O.W.L? Presumptuous!"

"You mean _preposterous_." Hooter corrected him. "But yes, I believe that if he survives, Darkwing might be just who we're looking for."

...

"Hand me that tartar sauce, would you Binkums?" Herb Muddlefoot was on the edge of an experimental breakthrough: Barbecued salmon hot dogs.

"Here you go, honey," his wife, Binkie, who the charitable could only call "scatterbrained," handed over the aforementioned tartar sauce. As she did, she caught a glimpse of the house next door. The people living there had just won a million dollars from the lottery and had quickly moved out to more expensive places. If she'd had a brain in her head, she would have noticed that the previous residents were almost _too _relieved to be away.

"I wonder who our next neighbors will be," she asked out loud.

"Dunno," Herb flipped another salmon-dog. "It'll be nice if they have kids, though. The boys could always use some more friends."

What Herb didn't notice was that there were _reasons _his two sons didn't have many friends. The elder, Tank, was closer to _thug _than duck, and acted like it too. Their younger son Honker, likely in response to his brutish big brother, had developed a defense tactic of simply being too quiet, usually ensconced in some quiet nook with something to read.

In this case, he was curled up not too far from his parents in a nearby chair reading the newspaper. It seemed there had been a lot going on in the last day. A nefarious crime boss and a vigilante were both missing, presumed dead. The vigilante, who'd been suspected of taking a fantastic invention, had also allegedly kidnapped the inventor's young granddaughter, but according to the smaller article new evidence had surfaced exonerating him. The guards that that Darkwing Duck had allegedly beaten had been found, claiming that they'd been defeated, not by Darkwing, but by Hammerhead Hannigan and his associates. The cops had taken a better look at the pictures of Darkwing defeating the "guards" only to realize they were in fact Hannigan's two henchmen. As for the inventor's granddaughter, she'd been found safe, if somewhat traumatized by the events and claimed that Darkwing had kidnapped her to keep her away from the crime boss, Taurus Bulba.

They'd also arrested other people associated with Bulba: Hannigan and his two henchmen, plus a giant condor who'd been sent to a bird sanctuary on the west coast. There were rumors that a fourth associate, a woman who'd acted as Bulba's secretary, had escaped, but the police weren't commenting on that.

Honker leaned back. As traumatic as those events sounded, he envied the young girl. She got recognition, her name in the paper and everything. The best he did was his name in the listing of honor roll students every year, but in spite of that he had trouble pushing himself forward. All he could do was sit there and hope somebody noticed him.

He wondered if the new neighbors would be the ones.

...

Nobody noticed the newspaper float away. If they did, they assumed it was just the wind that did it, rather than magic.

The paper floated gently into Morgana Macaubre's waiting hands, and she quickly flipped to the classified section. Perhaps this time the perfect job would show up? Then she wouldn't have to take drastic action...

But there were no postings looking for a magic user. She'd known that the magic users tended to keep to themselves, but they all wanted experience. Nobody wanted a witch who was just out of college, who had no job experience.

Morgana sighed as she put the paper down. It was a huge paradox; One needed experience to get experience, but no experience meant she couldn't _get _experience. This meant that she had no way to repay her student loans...

Her two bat familiars, Eek and Squeak, and her spider familiar Archie crowded around her, questioning expressions on their faces.

"Sorry guys, not this time."

Their disappointed expressions broke her heart.

"I know, but there has to be something we can do. Here, let's see what today's crossword is like."

As Morgana shuffled through the rest of the paper, the front section fell out. She leaned over to pick it up, and caught a glimpse of the picture on the front page.

"Ooh, who is this? He's kind of cute."

Morgana skimmed the article, only to realize that the duck on the cover, a vigilante, was missing, presumed dead.

"Oh. Well, I don't think it'll be a good idea to get involved with someone like that. Even if he is cute." Morgana shrugged and put the paper down. Given what she was most likely going to do, getting involved with a vigilante _definitely _wasn't a smart thing.

While Morgana dreaded the thought of what her father'd say if he knew she was about to become a criminal, she got some comfort in the thought that what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

After all, it wasn't like life was giving her a choice.

...

Steelbeak, the top agent for the Fiendish Organization of World Larceny, watched the F.O.W.L. scientists shuffle throught the wreckage of Taurus Bulba's airship. The scientists were looking for any surviving piece of the Ramrod, because given what a genius the dork who designed that thing was supposed to be, anything that survived would probably help F.O.W.L. in their plans for world domination.

Eh, they could do their job without him. It was hot, and he'd been booted out of bed way the heck too early so they could do this. He decided to go back to the hotel, but as he passed a ruined bulwark he caught sight of something.

"Yeesh, now _that _is yuck city."

Or rather, _he _was yuck city. _He_ looked like that Bulba guy. Steelbeak had met the guy once or twice, when he and F.O.W.L.'d had a mutual agreement, but they hadn't known each other well. He glanced at the scientists hauling the massive form into a capsule of some kind.

"Why're we digging up this corpse?" Steelbeak asked facetously. "High Command got a desire for fertilizer?"

"Actually, High Command's been curious about cybernetic enhancement," a scientist answered him. "We could effectively turn him into a puppet–"

Bulba's eyes snapped wide open, then unfocused and closed again.

"So, a puppet, you say?" Steelbeak continued as if the interruption had never happened. "That'll be fun to watch. We could use all his connections, too."

His nasty laughter echoed off the airship's remaining walls.


	9. Chapter 9

Darkly Dawns the Divergence

Prologue

_The editor flicked through his e-mails seeing nothing but more demands for Darkwing stories. It figured. Years after he'd been taken off the initial project of the duck writing his fill-the-gap stories, Disney had rebooted the old Ducktales show and that had led to the inevitable demand for a Darkwing Duck reboot and more fans wanting to know what the "real" Duck was like._

_And that was why his cartoony client was currently occupying his office, complaning about how he'd been neglected all these years. Granted, the duck hadn't even been aware of the passage of time until someone had told him._

_Well, at least they got him there at all. The Disney people had said something about Darkwing appearing on their new series, and how that might affect the duck's appearance or make him a different character entirely. The editor had hoped that would be the case, since the duck was...a bit hard to deal with. He was mildly disappointed when the duck had arrived normally._

_"So, what do you want me to write this time?" The duck demanded irritably._

_"Your first episode," the editor told him._

_"What?"_

_"They want to know what the first episode of your series was like. Someone found out that the way your pilot episode went was apparently not how things went in your universe. They wrote the original pilot, then the Disney people got that cut up so it'd only be two episodes long, so the bosses want you to write how things really went."_

_"But they start out the same way. Do you really want me to write the first episode verbatim until that point?"_

_"No, you can start from where they start to diverge. That won't be quite as hard, will it?"_

_The duck grunted, thoughtfully rubbing his beak. "Okay, but I'd better get something big out of it. A new TV show or something."_

_The editor cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yeah, about that..."_

Author's Note: Sorry about taking my own sweet time to come up with another Darkwing fic. My inner muse keeps giving me inspiration from other fandoms.

Anyway, the good part about having a job at a library is that it gives me plenty of time to write. I've got this incredibly long document of fics, fic fragments, and fic ideas. I've also got a tendency to exercise my creative skills by coming up with good "what-if" scenarios. In this case, it was "What if Darkwing missed the Morse code trap?" And it kinda snowballed from there into my own take on the original DWD pilot. I'm kind of tempted to write my own take on the first part, but as it is I'm content with the second.

And while I'm on the subject, it's looking like there's a very real possibility that the show will be rebooted in real life, too. I'm hoping that comes true.


End file.
